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Girl Power?

So it was just a random HOT afternoon, and in a bid to escape from the scorching heat, I decided to head to this nice, little cosy cafe just around the neighborhood. As I entered, the distinct, familiar smell that exuded from the café was an ease to my senses. The friendly waitress, immediately recognized me, smiled, and came over to ask for my order. Due to womanly pains, instead of the regular Ice Chocolate, which I usually order due to the ridiculously insane weather, I decided to have an Earl Grey Tea. Yes, the essence and smell of it does help to stimulate and provide me with inspiration at the most random timings. Coffee isn’t exactly my best friend, ironically, not when an apparent overdose started causing my hands to tremble whenever I drink it. And yes I am not kidding.

As soon as I settled down, I flipped open my Mac and stared at the question that I was supposed to write for my assignment, “Why do you think the issue of GENDER is prominent in psychiatric discourse?”

The immediate thought that came across my mind was “Women=CRAZY!”

I am not an advocate of women’s rights but I hate to admit that deep down inside I am a little bit of a feminist. Why are we automatically presumed as crazy just because women are stereotyped as being overtly emotional and irrational creatures? Why should women be subjected to discrimination? Why do women always have to be subordinated by men and seen as the weaker sex? I just hate stereotypes and classifications.

It is already depressing to see how women are being subjected to sexual objectification and portrayed as mere sexual objects in men’s eyes, as seen in those Pornographic websites and Men’s magazines. Even in advertisements, the girl has to be pretty or attractive in order to make the product marketable. This is disheartening. Instead of holding an identity, women are projected as a collective instead of an individual in society. With the main purpose of sexual gratification, it has resulted in them being reduced to nothing but mere flesh.

With total disregard for a person’s personality and sentience, a woman’s unique individual opinions and thoughts are no longer valued as entity but are instead instantaneously perceived and classified under the category “Women”- which what differentiates them from the other sex is nothing but our genital parts. Deprived of humanity and subjectivity, a woman becomes an “Object” rather than an independently existing human being, distilling an individual from a pronoun “She” to an “It”.

This is even more depressing as it is accompanied by the harsh fact that society is superficial. Yes, it is. Even though we pretend that it is not. There is a normative emphasis on the female appearance and body, whereby a woman’s worth and value is solely determined by her sexual appeal towards men. If you are beautiful and sexually attractive, you have an advantage above others.

Why then? Why do we allow a woman’s attractiveness to be defined in relation to men, by allowing men to hold the yardsticks? Why do we allow ourselves to be subjected to such degradation? Why do we let men define us, take control and determine the value of our existence? We need to stand up for ourselves. As cliché as it may sound, we are beautiful and capable, just the way we are (and we don’t need men to tell us that.)

Women are not mad, we are not mad. It is not an illness that is born innately in ALL of us. So stop generalizing. Perhaps, people need to stop associating women with madness and depression because the fact is Men do get depression too. Perhaps it is due to those movies like “My Super-Ex Girlfriend” (or rather it reminds you of YOUR Crazy-Ex Girlfriend), which totally destroys and mutates the image of women. Or perhaps, it is precisely men’s ego and lack of understanding that causes this degeneration.

“Hello ladies, we need to love ourselves more!”

Alright, perhaps I shall not deviate and just head straight back to my assignment. From a distance as I look up, the female waitress gave me a smile and went back to work…